gmitchs

There looked to be a few empty seats in the back but it was fairly full. I was just surprised at how few elites there were. Only 3 got CPU'ed. Everyone else in the back was below silver or redeeming miles.

jjmoore

Interesting. The flight didn't show any empty seats in the back.

I have always been interested in what would happen in an instance like this where all Silver and higher are upgraded and there are still empty seats in F... and the back is oversold.... would they bump people up based on fare class?

JC5280

Yes, operational upgrades (Op-Ups) would occur then. When all MP statuses have been utilized, then they would start using highest fare paid by booking class. Most likely, the gate agents would look for military personel first. ^

This happens on international flights more often than domestic, but I have seen it happen on domestic. If you watch the leisure routes to/from the caribbean destinations, you will see this. Just recently, I saw a seat map on a 739 Punta Cana-Chicago flight with one person in F and a full coach.

JC5280

I have experienced a few of these cases where I actually was part of the seat map discrepancies. 3 of my last 4 onboard upgrades were done after I had already boarded. I was moved up to F class, my seatmates in coach were thrilled to have a new empty seat in their row, and then the door shut. These gate agents were very professional and worked efficiently. The seat I was moved to showed empty. Same with the other individual upgraded onboard. The seat I was in back in Y still showed occupied. I am assuming they just got too busy closing out the flight and never processed the upgrade, because i was still on the UG list when the flight was pushing back. After we landed, nothing had changed, it still showed 2 empties in F. In my mileage posting, it still showed me as seated in Y. Coming out of a hub, they have misconnects. Stuff happens.

We need to understand that there is so much more to a flight departure than what we see/hear. Passengers only see and understand a small fraction of what occurs, so its much easier to assume than know. Thats why most of the customer responses to emails complaining about missed upgrades are given just a simple apology.

cfischer

5 empty F seats on a late morning BOS-EWR flight 2 weeks ago. List showed nobody waiting for an upgrade.

cmhua777

MGA-IAH had 14 empty F seats after they upgraded two non-revs.

Goaliedad30

Yesterday I had a meeting cancel, so changed my IAD-MSP flight to a day earlier. Departing IAD at 5:00 pm on an ERJ175, we left with zero people on the upgrade list and only 7 of 12 seats in F occupied. I can't remember the last time I've seen that, although being exSFO, I'm not sure I thought it possible

mre5765

Orginal equipment was crj200.

Swapped to cr7 after olci.

No one on upgrade list

This lowly 1M miler over entitled trash knows what to do. Olci again.

Now first on upgrade list with 6 empty seats.

At gate I asked to be cleared.

2A please.

A bunch of GS and 1K sitting in back. Unhappy.

Stupid dot bomb.

Zeug

Yesterday, UA3860 DEN-COS. I know this is a short flight, but still the first time I've seen empty first. I was in 1A, which I like on the Q400. 2A and 3A went empty.

There were three on the upgrade list, all cleared. Crazy to think there were no other elites on a full plane.

drewguy

Meanwhile, on the other side of this on a flight this summer my daughter and I were #1 and 2 on upgrade list. FA came to find us just before pushback to move us up to first because of no shows/misconnects. Well, in the short time it took us to go claim our seats the no-shows showed. Awk-ward. We stayed put and the FAs accommodated them in coach somehow. One can see why they might be a bit reluctant to process upgrades with the alternative possibility.

transportprof

The way to solve this dilemma would for GA's to give FA's the necessary name(s) & seat(s) for upgrade(s) as they close the door and then FAs do the switch while the airbridge is being retracted. But that would require a much higher level of precision and mindfulness than UA exhibits currently.

drewguy

AT that point, aren't passengers required to be buckled in their seats? I do see the logic - perhaps once the door is closed a pause to allow this to happen.

exerda

There were IIRC 3 empty F seats on my IAD-DEN yesterday morning.

It showed booked full and checked in full at T-1, but just before pushback, the GA came on board to do a count and noticed several empty F seats. Waitlist for F was about 40 people long.

I know they went back into Y and upgraded one person from the list to the front, as he got the seat next to me. I suspect they did the same for the other two seats, so technically, we didn't leave with empty seats. This was similar to the IAD-LAS flight I had a few weeks ago, where my RPUs hadn't cleared, but at the gate the GA asked me and my mom to hang back as "the last two F seats have only 6 more minutes to show up." She held a countdown and then handed us the last two F seat BPs.

davidviolin

2 empty F seats last night EWR-ATL. I was #1 on UG list but did not clear. There were 9 total on the list. What is going on??!

(not to mention ended up docking at E2, ensuring a 35 min trek to get to bag claim, UA never stops dissapointing)

davidviolin

wrote 1kvoice and they gave me 5000 goodwill miles... I did not write to get miles, but I think that was kinda lousy... if I were to upgrade domestic leg to first, it would cost me 17500 miles...